Jury is ready to hear case in Zetas killings

Updated 10:31 pm, Tuesday, January 17, 2012

LAREDO — Opening arguments are expected to begin today in the trial of a man accused of being a hit man for the Zetas drug cartel, who prosecutors said carried out killings and assaults as part of a drug conspiracy.

Lawyers selected a jury of four men and eight women, as well as four alternates, for the trial of Gerardo Castillo Chavez, a 25-year-old from Mexico, who faces up to life in prison if convicted on the drug conspiracy, firearms and racketeering charges leveled against him.

The trial, which is expected to last until the end of next week, drew beefed-up security at Laredo's federal courthouse including rifle-toting federal agents in body armor and bomb-sniffing dogs.

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His attorneys say Castillo Chavez, who's been in custody since his 2009 arrest in Houston, isn't the man federal agents were looking for when they were trying to arrest one of the 34 defendants in the case. Prosecutors contend Castillo Chavez used the alias Armando Garcia and was who investigators were looking for in Houston.

On the eve of trial, the jury selection process showed exactly how much of a pall the Zetas have cast over this border town, despite its low homicide rate.

When trying to weed out potential jurors who found the mere involvement of the Zetas to be an insurmountable bias, defense attorney Roberto Balli admitted life has changed in the decade since the cartel came to power in Nuevo Laredo.

“I could go to Nuevo Laredo and visit my grandmother,” he said of the time before the mid-2000s, when warring drug cartels made Laredo's sister city unsafe. “I could go have a meal. I could have a drink with friends. That's gone. All of that's gone, and many of you that are from here may have had a similar experience, that something was taken away from you.”

When Balli asked if any jurors would be too affected by the changes wrought by the drug war, a handful raised their hands.

Earlier in the day one juror, a rancher, said he regularly sees smugglers crossing his property.

Another juror said the allegations that Castillo Chavez was involved with the Zetas prevented her from being impartial. She said that 15 months ago, she had to negotiate with them when a family member was kidnapped. She didn't name the Zetas, only alluding to media reports that Castillo Chavez allegedly was a member of the gang.